Everyone at the table looked at me then, and I tried to sound convincing. “I just remembered,” I said. “I need to go talk to Wesley about our English project.” Screw avoiding him. I had a better, more helpful idea.
“Didn’t you finish that on Saturday?” Jessica asked.
“We got started on it, but we didn’t finish the paper.”
“ ’Cause you were too busy making out,” Casey teased, winking at me.
Don’t look guilty. Don’t look guilty.
“Making out?” Vikki raised an eyebrow at me.
“Didn’t you hear?” Jessica laughed, smiling good-naturedly at me. “Bianca is madly in love with Wesley.”
I faked a gagging noise and everyone laughed. “Yeah, right,” I said, making sure that my voice was full of irritation and disgust. “I can’t stand him. God, I’ve lost so much respect for Mrs. Perkins since she made me work with him.”
“I’d be ecstatic if I were you,” Vikki said, sounding a little bitter.
Jeanine and Angela nodded in agreement.
“Anyway.” I was feeling a little jumpy. “I need to talk to him about getting this done. I’ll see you all later, okay?”
“ ’kay,” Jessica said, waving cheerfully.
I hurried through the crowded cafeteria, not slowing down until I was within five feet of Wesley’s table, where the only other male occupant was Harrison Carlyle. Then I paused for a second, suddenly a little hesitant.
One of the girls, a skinny blonde with Angelina Jolie lips, was rattling on about her crappy vacation in Miami, and Wesley was listening with rapt attention-obviously trying to convince her of his sympathy. Disgust erased my insecurity, and I cleared my throat loudly, getting the whole group’s attention.
The blonde was agitated and angry, but I focused on Wesley, who looked at me casually, like he would any other girl. I turned up my nose and said, “I need to talk to you about our English paper.”
“Is it necessary?” Wesley asked with a sigh.
“Yeah,” I said. “Right now. I’m not going to fail this stupid assignment because of your lazy ass.”
He rolled his eyes and got to his feet. “Sorry, ladies,” he said to the tragedy-stricken girls. “I’ll see you tomorrow. You’ll save a seat for me?”
“Of course we will,” a tiny redhead squeaked.
As Wesley and I walked away, I heard Big Lips hiss, “God, that girl is a bitch!”
When we were out in the hallway Wesley asked, “What’s the problem, Duffy? I e-mailed you the essay last night, just like you demanded. And where exactly are we going? The library?”
“Just shut up and come with me.” I led him down the hall past the English classrooms.
Don’t ask where I got this idea, because I couldn’t tell you, but I knew precisely where we were going, and I was sure that this might officially make me a slut. But when we reached the door of the unused janitor’s closet, I had no feeling of shame… not yet, at least.
I grasped the doorknob and noticed Wesley’s eyes narrow with suspicion. I yanked open the door, checked that no one was watching, and gestured for him to go inside. Wesley walked into the tiny closet, and I followed, shutting the door stealthily behind us.
“Something tells me this isn’t about The Scarlet Letter,” he said, and even in the dark I knew he was grinning.
“Be quiet.”
This time he met me halfway. His hands tangled in my hair and mine clawed at his forearms. We kissed violently, and my back slammed against the wall. I heard a mop-or maybe a broom-topple over, but my brain barely registered the sound as one of Wesley’s hands moved to my hip, holding me closer to him. He was so much taller than me that I had to tilt my head back almost all the way to meet his kiss. His lips pressed hard against mine, and I let my hands explore his biceps.
The smell of his cologne, rather than the lonely, stale air of the closet, filled my senses.
We wrestled in the darkness for a while before I felt his hand insistently lifting the hem of my T-shirt. With a gasp, I pulled away from the kiss and grabbed his wrist. “No… not now.”
“Then when?” Wesley asked in my ear, still pinning me to the wall. He didn’t even sound winded.
I, on the other hand, struggled to catch my breath. “Later.”
“Be more specific.”
I squirmed out of his arms and moved toward the door, nearly tripping over what felt like a bucket. I raised a hand to flatten my wavy hair and reached for the doorknob. “Tonight. I’ll be at your house around seven. Okay?” But before he could answer, I slipped out of the closet and hurried down the hall, hoping it didn’t look like a walk of shame.
10
I didn’t think the final bell would ever ring. Calculus was excruciatingly long and boring, and English was nerve-racking. I caught myself glancing across the room at Wesley several times, anxious to feel the mind-numbing effects of his arms, hands, and lips again.
I just prayed my friends didn’t notice. Jessica, of course, would believe me if I told her she was imagining things; Casey, on the other hand… well, hopefully Casey was too absorbed in Mrs. Perkins’s grammar lesson-ha, yeah right!-to look over at me. She would probably interrogate me for hours and guess everything that had happened, seeing right through my denials. I really needed to get the hell out of there before I was exposed.
But when the bell finally rang, I was in no hurry to walk outside.
Jessica skipped toward the cafeteria with her blond ponytail bouncing behind her. “I can’t wait to see him!”
“We get it, Jess,” Casey said. “You love your big brother. It’s cute, really, but you’ve said that… twenty times today? Thirty, maybe?”
Jessica blushed. “Well, I can’t wait.”
“Of course you can’t.” Casey smiled at her. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you, too, but you might want to calm down just a tiny bit.” She stopped in the middle of the cafeteria and looked over her shoulder at me. “You coming, B?”
“No,” I said, crouching down and messing with my shoestrings. “I need to… tie this. You guys go ahead. Don’t stall the reunion for me.”
Casey gave me a knowing look before nodding and pushing Jessica ahead. She started a new conversation to distract Jessica from my lame excuse. “So tell me about this fiancée. What’s she like? Pretty? Dumb as a sack of potatoes? I want the details.”